This Is Everyone's Fault But Mine

Trump will be the 45th President of the United States of America, taking office at the end of President Obama's tenure. He won the Electoral College by a significant margin, although it appears that he may have lost the popular vote, or at least that it will be extraordinarily close.

And now the question remains: who is to blame for this turn of events? Who can I point the finger at and direct my anger towards? Turns out, there are a lot of people - as long as I don't have to look inward and blame myself for anything.

1. Trump Supporters

Oh, you voted for Donald Trump? Fuck you. You voted for bigotry and sexism and homophobia and a total lack of restraint and the total absence of reason and logic. I'm sure that's what you were probably thinking when you voted for him too, definitely not anything about how a vote for Trump was an effective call for change and a way to voice protest against years of establishment politics that were totally divorced from the (however misdirected) frustrations and anger of rural/non-city voters and the exact same reason Trump destroyed the rest of the Republican primary.

2. Third Party Voters

Hey, HOW'S THAT PROTEST VOTE FEEL NOW? You thought you were "sending a message" by voting for Jill Stein or Gary Johnson, huh? Well - the message that was received was "GO TRUMP!"

Forget that the third party vote likely delivered a few key states to Clinton instead of Trump, you OWED your vote to the Democrats. Sure, there were very little in the way of overtures from Democrats to voters leaning towards a third party, with things like climate change being mostly dropped from all messaging. You shouldn't expect politicians to work for your vote - it's YOUR duty to give it to the candidate belonging to the less-unsavory of our two-party system and never seek a broader, more diverse political environment where dozens of points of view are represented.

3. People Who Stayed Home and Didn't Vote

Oh - you think both candidates weren't desirable and so you just didn't vote AT ALL? Come on - YOU OWE ONE OF THESE TWO YOUR VOTE. It's not THEIR job to motivate you, it's YOUR job to give them your vote no matter what. Being politically disillusioned and totally disaffected shouldn't stop you from trying to give someone you don't particularly believe in your implicit endorsement for the most powerful position in the world.

4. The Democratic Party

Hey Democrats - by doing everything in your power to squeeze out populist candidate Bernie Sanders, you crushed a major part of your base and screwed yourself over! If you would have just nominated a 75-year old self-identified democratic socialist, HE TOTALLY WOULD HAVE CONVINCED MIDWEST WORKING CLASS VOTERS TO GO FOR HIM. Bernie's approval numbers are great right now, in the reality where he wasn't the candidate for president and therefore Republicans had no incentive to run a massive McCarthyism-esque smear campaign against him. I'm sure with every screaming pundit in America screaming about "socialism" 24/7, America still TOTALLY would have gone for the oldest person ever to run for president.

5. The Founding Fathers

Hey, you IDIOTIC founding fathers - the Electoral College friggin' SUCKS and doesn't even make any sense. If we just stuck to the popular vote, presidential elections would actually be THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE. If not for you and your stupid system of government, we wouldn't be in this mess! Also America would be a collection of European colonies ruled from overseas with little voice in its own governance.

6. Anthony Weiner

Jesus, Anthony Weiner - if you could have just NOT sexted with a 15 year old girl, the FBI wouldn't have had cause to re-look into Hillary Clinton's emails and wouldn't have reignited that scandal a mere few days before the election. It's definitely not Hillary's team's fault for not turning in this laptop in the original investigation OR their fault for poorly communicating the likely mundane and slightly stupid reasons for Clinton's private server woes (which - according to reporter Garrett Graff - mostly amounted to Hillary's team wanting to find a simple way for Hillary to use her favorite kind of BlackBerry and a general ignorance and/or disdain for basic protocols).

7. Josh Gad

I JUST NEED TO BE MAD AT SOMEONE OTHER THAN MYSELF. I NEED THERE TO BE CLEARLY IDENTIFIED BAD GUYS WHO I CAN POINT TO AND SAY "THIS IS YOUR FAULT."

SO FUCK YOU JOSH GAD.

8. Everyone Except Me

If anyone's blameless in this - it's me. What more could I have done? I wrote some joke articles and retweeted some VERY important tweets. Sure, I didn't go out and volunteer, or get involved in the political machines of any candidate, or vote in off-year elections, or get involved in local politics, or made any serious efforts to truly communicate with people on the other side of the political divide and truly hear them out on what was frustrating them or causing them to lean in a political direction opposite my own.

It's not my fault. It's the media's fault for not being critical enough of Trump and his actions. It's the voters' fault for not feeling the same way I do and having a perspective I don't understand or relate to. It's the system's fault for being out of date and non-democratic. It's the candidate's fault for not being able to connect with a large swath of voters. It's the fault of of every person who didn't do their part, who didn't do enough, who dropped the ball at the most important moment in American history.

I made a Facebook status reminding people to vote. It got 4 likes. What more could I have done?